If he wins tonight, Biden’s plan for COVID-19 include a nationwide test and trace system, which many experts have said the U.S. should have had up and running months ago. The problem: It may now be too late for such a system to offer meaningful benefits. Test and trace — interviewing people who have tested positive for COVID-19 and tracking down their recent contacts so those people can also be tested or quarantined — works best when there are clear points of contact and people can make educated guesses about where they might have contracted the illness. Thanks to the recent surge, there are many parts of the country where this is no longer possible. Running for president this year was always going to be about how each candidate will deal with the pandemic — but at this point, it’s going to affect what options any potential Biden administration has available to get the disease under control. If he wins tonight, he has some big challenges ahead.
